World War Veteran Gets Bronze Medal

Vero Beach Man Honored For 1945 Rescue

VERO BEACH — For most of the quarter-mile, Richard "Basil" Sheets hobbled along.

He was 20 and fit, having grown up in a small Kentucky town hunting rabbits and squirrels with a .22-caliber rifle. Some were eaten by his family and others he sold.

But now he was helping a man who could barely walk after being shot in the stomach by German soldiers in northern Italy in World War II. The man was a friend that Sheets learned had been left behind. Of Sheets' original infantry company of 160, only 12 were left in July 1945.

"Everyone looked out for one another," he said. "We were all real close."

So the private went off alone for the rescue -- going low and hiding to avoid being shot by snipers on a hill. One bullet knocked a canteen off his belt.

For his successful rescue, he was given a certificate for the Bronze Star but never got the medal.

When the war ended, Sheets just wanted to move on with his life and his new bride, Jean. He became a mechanic in Fort Pierce and now lives in Vero Beach.

Last month, a box arrived from the Veterans Administration. It contained his Bronze Star, plus duplicates of his service ribbons and pins for honorable service, serving in the European Theater and for being an infantryman.

"I done give up on it," he said.

His wife didn't. Last year, at the urging of a church friend, Harvey Dobson, she asked the Veterans Administration for the medal.

Now their son, Robert Sheets, of Fort Pierce, is making a shadow box to display the awards.

"Apparently they did their research," Jean Sheets said. "They sent him everything."

His heroic action came weeks after he had first entered Italy as a foot soldier, arriving in a ship.

"The biggest thing I went through that scared me the most was getting caught in our own artillery barrage. They pelted us down," he said.

Then came the fight for the hill with German machine gunners holding the heights. When American troops finally won, Sheets and the other soldiers headed down the other side and walked along a road. Suddenly, two German soldiers drove by them, headed to Germany. "Not a shot was fired," he said.

To him, the scene was surrealistic.

Eventually, Sheets ended up in Austria, where he was assigned to help supervise a prisoner of war camp. Then he was ordered to the Pacific, but the war ended. He stuck his war stories in the back of his mind. It wasn't until a couple of years ago that some of his war buddies stopped by and his wife began to hear what happened.